Daily Archives: January 15, 2013

Here it is, the middle of January, and it seems like we were watch the Tournament of Roses parade just the other day. At this rate, it’ll be time for shorts and flip-flops before you know it. So while we’re waiting for time to fly even faster, here’s a small collection of technology news items:

At the Consumer Electronics Show in ‘Vegas, Microsoft showed off the second offering in its’ line of tablets; the Surface Pro. Two different reporters developed two differing opinions of the new device:

In the affirmative, Jon Phillips of PC World has an overall positive impression of the Pro. He does conclude, however, that the $900 – $1,200 price point is going to be a drag on adoption and sales in a segment of the computing marketplace where the hardware is already overpriced. Read the article on PC World.

Jon and Sebastian do agree on one thing; the Surface RT was a waste of time.

Those of you who read our wee collection of Apple news last week may remember the item about Cupertino making a less expensive iPhone. Well, according to Apple’s VP of world-wide domination marketing, Phil Schiller, there are no plans to do any such thing any time soon.

. . . despite the popularity of cheap smartphones, this will never be the future of Apple’s products.

That’s the way to do it, Phil. Keep the iPhone out of the hands of the peons who don’t deserve them anyway. There’s more to this story and you can read it for yourself on PC World.

In light of that last item, this one is all the more interesting. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Apple has reduced its orders for iPhone parts because of lackluster demand. This reduction has resulted in orders for iPhone 5 screens being halved and orders for other components have been reduced as well. The fact that demand for the iPhone 5 has been sluggish is certainly an eye-brow raiser.This is partially due to increased competition from Samsung – the biggest phone manufacturer in 2012 – and other phone manufacturers with devices based on Google’s Android operating system. Another possible reason is that releasing a new iPhone every time you turn around has taken its toll on consumers who have figured out that you don’t need the latest offering from Cupertino to be hip/productive. PC World has the full story.